dangerblog

Homeowner

Yesterday, I had my closing, so I am officially a homeowner!  I am so relieved to have that all over with.  I feel like I have all the time in the world tonight because I don't have to spend half my night worrying!

This past weekend, so as not to worry myself to death so close to the closing, I decided to join my friend L in Atlanta for the Corndogorama Music Festival (14th Annual, believe it or not).  I actually found a few really good new bands while I was drinking far too many beers and eating corn dogs and tater tots.  I think I met my grease quotient of the month in one weekend.  But it was really yummy, I have to say.  The people-watching was amazing.  This isn't your average music festival, so the people who attend are really music lovers and really have a lot of...personality.  So, even though L and I could barely hear one another, we were highly, highly entertained.  So entertained, in fact, that Saturday we required a full day of recuperation watching chick flicks on TBS.   

On Sunday morning, I woke up, and it was back to reality.  L's new boyfriend is an attorney, and he read over my mortgage papers with me so that I could ask questions and stuff without having everyone stare at me at the closing.  I didn't have all the papers, just some of them.  In fact, they didn't finish putting my loan package together till about 2 hours before the closing.  To say I was freaking out would be putting it mildly.  I had everyone involved in the closing, the realtors, the mortgage people and the attorney, all on speed dial and was calling them regularly for updates.  I think they were starting to hate me.  Oh well.

Finally, at 4PM (my closing was at 6), I got fed up and decided to drive over to the attorney's office so I could pressure them into getting everything done.  I grabbed a Starbucks on the way and was really counting on camping on the couch for an hour or two while they decided what to do.

Thankfully, when I got there, he was just finishing everything up, and he actually took the time to sit down and go over all the papers with me and he let me sign some of them ahead of time so that we didn't have to do it in the big meeting.

When the sellers arrived, we only had to sign a few papers, so the whole thing took about 10 minutes.  A month of worrying, over quickly and painlessly (relatively.  For the last hour or so).

They are moving out today and tomorrow, so I can start getting the house ready on Thursday.  L is trying to come here this weekend to hang out for 4th of July and to do some shopping for the house with me. 

There's about a million things I want to buy for the house, but I'm trying to use some restraint and just get the most important stuff for now.  I really want to buy an extra bed for the guest bedroom so that I can start having more people down for the weekend, but everything is just so expensive.  We'll see.  Hopefully I can get some good deals at the July 4th sales.

Foodie

So, I'm closing on my house on Monday.  I have had a dull stomachache ever since Sunday, and I think that's my body's way of dealing with the stress of this.  I am really looking forward to moving and settling into my new house, shopping for new things, gardening (not mowing so much), decorating....not looking forward to signing my life away on Monday.

I've been little miss suzy homemaker here lately.  I think I mentioned way back in March or so that I was doing the French diet thing.  I've never been one to stick to a diet ever (six weeks is usually the limit), but I've been getting better and better and following the French thing.  I just made the Asparagus Flan recipe from "French Women Don't Get Fat" and it was decadent and delicious.  I'm eating 7-10 servings of fruit and vegetables every day.  I'm drinking about 3 liters of water.  I have stopped eating almost anything processed.  And, as a result, I have lost my unstoppable sweet tooth.  Even Starbuck's mochas are getting too sweet for me.  I've never eaten this healthily in my life, and the amazing part is that it isn't even hard.

I make fancy multi-course meals that have more than 5 ingredients every now and then (like tonight's asparagus flan), but for the most part, I will make some fish or chicken, some rice or potatoes and a veggie for dinner, all cooked in some delicious concoction of butter and cream and olive oil and garlic and spices.  Usually takes about 20 minutes.  And it tastes great, though what wouldn't with ingredients like that?

I have been making my own salad dressing for a while so that I could monitor the ingredients.  I had been buying this imported french mayonnaise from the Fresh Market, but they were out for an extended period, so I go out the Betty Crocker cookbook and learned how to make my own.  Astounding.  Takes about 5 minutes.   I've been making my own creme fraiche as well (sort of like sour cream) to go in my soups and desserts.

For desserts, I am all into crepes: Banana Nutella and Strawberry Cream.  Actually, sometimes, I have them for breakfast.  On the weekend, I've been known to have the strawberry ones for dinner.

Introducing Winston

I got my final approval on my mortgage loan today, so I will be closing on June 27th!  I can't even believe it is coming up that fast.  My lease isn't up until the 29th of July, so I am not going to move until July 16th.  I've already got the movers that I like lined up for first thing in the morning.   (Two Men and a Truck.  They're awesome.)   That will give me two weekends plus July 4th to get things painted, change out some of the light fixtures and bring over as many boxes as I can.  I'm still nervous about the closing and all, but now that the loan is approved, I am starting to get excited.

In perhaps less exciting yet much more adorable news: my little kitten is growing like a weed.  I've decided to name him Winston.  He's pretty playful, but he likesto sleep on my lap while I'm at the computer, and he tucks in right beside when I sleep at night.   Look at that face!

Sealed the Deal

We finally came to an agreement on the home inspection today, so the house is pretty much a done deal.  I just have to wait until closing on June 30th and try not to spend too much money until then.  I was to the point yesterday with the house stuff that if they didn't want to do what I wanted, I was just going to call off the deal. (I probably wouldn't have really, but I certainly felt like it.)  I mean, really.  I wasn't nitpicky.  I picked the three things from the inspection that were the biggest problems.  The kinds of things that every single buyer who came along was going to ask for.  I guess my realtor must have picked up on my loss of enthusiasm for bargaining, because today he got them to fix the main thing and give me allowances (with real estimates to back them up) for the rest.  Yay!

This house thing has absolutely paralyzed me for weeks.  I just do not deal with stress well.  Last week, I was in the middle of taking on a new system at work while still being on point for my old system, and dealing with the house stuff and doing DeLush stuff, and taking care of the kitten (did I mention I have adopted one of the kittens I was babysitting?) , and basically, I just fell apart and got sick.  And even this weekend and earlier this week, my productivity level was extremely low for me.  All I've wanted to do is sleep.

And then the house thing works out today and I came home and was compelled to clean my entire apartment.  Now that the weight of that was off my shoulders, I was able to function again.  Is anyone else like this?